"He's all at sea, floundering about," he ended by saying. "Look here, he is now asking me whether there were not two who did the deed. And, as at Havre, I spoke of a black mass weighing on the old chap's legs. He questioned me on the point; he seems to fancy it was only the rug. Then he sent for it, and I had to express an opinion. Well, now, yes, when I come to think, perhaps it was the rug." The Roubauds shuddered. They were on their track; one word from this man might ruin them. He certainly knew, and he would end by talking. And all three, the woman between the two men, left the Law Courts in silence. In the street the assistant station-master observed: "By the way, comrade, my wife will be obliged to go to Paris, for a day, on business. It would be very good of you, if you would look after her, should she be in need of someone." CHAPTER V Precisely at 11.15, the advertised time, the signalman at the Pont de l'Europe, gave the two regulation blows of the horn, to announce the Havre express, which issued from the Batignolles tunnel. Soon afterwards the turn-tables rattled, and the train entered the station with a short whistle, grating on the brakes, smoking, shining, dripping with the beating rain that had not ceased since leaving Rouen. The porters had not yet turned the handles of the doors, when one of them opened, and Séverine sprang lightly to the platform, before the train had stopped. Her carriage was at the end. To reach the locomotive, she had to hurry through the swarm of passengers, embarrassed by children and packages, who had suddenly left the compartments. Jacques stood there, erect on the foot-plate, waiting to go to the engine-house; while Pecqueux wiped the brasswork with a cloth. "So it is understood," said she, on tiptoe. "I will be at the Rue Cardinet at three o'clock, and you will have the kindness to introduce me to your chief, so that I may thank him." This was the pretext imagined by Roubaud: a visit to the head of the depôt at Batignolles, to thank him for some vague service he had rendered. In this manner she would find herself confided to the good friendship of the driver. She could strengthen the bonds, and exert her influence over him. But Jacques, black with coal, drenched with water, exhausted by the struggle against rain and wind, stared at her with his harsh eyes, without answering. On leaving Havre, he had been unable to refuse the request of the husband to look after her; and this idea of finding himself alone in her company upset him, for he now felt that he was very decidedly falling in love with her. "Is that right?" she resumed, smiling, with her sweet, caressing look, overcoming her surprise and slight repugnance at finding him so dirty, barely recognisable. "Is that right? I shall rely on your being there." And, as she raised herself a little higher, resting her gloved hand on one of the iron handles, Pecqueux obligingly interfered: "Take care, you will dirty yourself," said he.